


They Watched

by celohei



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Multi Characters, Reference to canon-typical horror, So many secondary characters, This really wasn't a book for children, mostly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25065292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celohei/pseuds/celohei
Summary: Panem watched as a girl volunteered to save her sister.The Capitol watched as she became the Girl on Fire and the star-crossed lover of her fellow tribute.The Districts watched as a little girl made the Capitol blink and bend.Panem watched as she became the Mockingjay and set the world ablaze.But some people watched the girl more closely. What did they see?(Lot of characters)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Greasy Sae

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Team!
> 
> This is a reviewed version of 'They Watched' (updated May 14, 2020), originally posted on FFN. I am currently re-reading the trilogy for the first time in years, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to dust up this little work.
> 
> I am sorry to say I apparently have lost my original files with the rest of the story. I am absolutely gutted because I remember writing chapters on so many more characters than what I have published on FFN. I will keep looking on my various flashdrives etc to find it but I'm not too hopeful.
> 
> I am planning to keep working on this fic though. I will first take the time to review and edit the chapters that I have already published on FFN. Then, I will post new chapters. How soon will entirely depend on whether I manage to find my old files or have to start from scratch again. If this is the case, I'll need to progress in my reading first because I have forgotten a good deal of the details that inspired this fic in the first place.
> 
> Anyways, this is a fic that I wrote years ago. I wanted to explore the secondary characters' perception of the events in the books. This will thus follow canon to a certain point, but because it is a fan fiction, there will be some deviance from it too. Because I can and because I want to.
> 
> For those who are joining us for the first time: Welcome!
> 
> General warnings for the story : mentions of death and violence (it IS about the Hunger Games, what do you expect?), emotional emotions, references of prostitution... Really, it's all about the books (and really they are NOT children books) so you know what to expect.
> 
> This story is mostly a character exploration. Each chapter will explore one character. They can all be read separately but they will more or less be published in chronological order. If you want a focus on fast developing plot, I'd suggest jumping back to the books: you will not find it here.
> 
> The chapters will greatly vary in length and style. Again, they will follow canon for the most part but I am planning to change a few things. The inspiration for this comes both from the book and the movies.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you will enjoy this.

**They Watched**

* * *

**Greasy Sae**

Greasy Sae watched the man become a father. The man was a miner. And a hunter. According to the laws of Panem he was a criminal. But here, where even the Peacekeepers' stomachs were growling with hunger, he was just a man. A happy man – as happy as one could be here, in the Seam, in District 12.

Greasy Sae watched the man raise his daughter. She was just like him, that little piece of life, in more ways than one. She watched as the girl smiled at her singing father.

Greasy Sae watched as the girl became a sister. A new flower bloomed in the little family. As fair as her namesake.

The man remained a miner, a hunter, a singer. A husband and a father.

The little girls grew, the eldest always serious. Serious but happy. And strong. Like her father. Her father with the same eyes and the same smile.

Greasy Sae watched as the girls became orphans. The mine took both their parents one day. One was claimed by fire, along with other fathers, husbands, brothers. The man's wife was taken by pain, grief, loneliness and despair.

So Greasy Sae watched the flowers lose their smiles. And their flesh. She watched as they slowly lost their lives, little by little, day by day. Until Greasy Sae knew that she would soon have to watch the sisters become flowers, for real this time, when they would sleep in the carbon dust-saturated ground. Like flowers in autumn they were withering away.

But the eldest was like her father. Strong. Greasy Sae watched her cling back to life. She watched as she wrenched her sister back from starvation's clutches, then hunger's, slowly. Greasy Sae watched their bones disappear beneath flesh again. Life came back.

But the eldest never regained her smile. She only had one, and she kept it for her sister.

The girl became a hunter, like her father.

Greasy Sae watched as the girl who had lost her smile became a friend. A friend to another boy who had lost a father to the mine.

She watched as slowly the girl started smiling again. Soon the boy and the girl started coming to Greasy Sae with meat and to others with wild fruits.

Greasy Sae watched the girl go after she thanked her for the soup.

That girl. No.

Greasy Sae had watched the girl fading away. Not a woman yet. Not in the usual sense of the word. Yet, in a way, she was. That girl-woman who carried the life of her small family on her shoulders.

Like her father, in more ways than one. She was strong, that girl-woman. But Greasy Sae, because she had watched, knew that she was also fragile, in her own way.

Greasy Sae shook her head and went back to cleaning the girl's bowl. She had no time to watch the world now. Tomorrow she would have to watch as two children would leave their home, never to return. She knew. She had watched children being taken away for the last 23 years.


	2. Finnick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finicky watches the tributes for this year. He feels nothing.

**Finnick**

"-I volunteer!"

Finnick's head snapped up to the screen on the wall. The screen in the train wagon that was taking him, two of his fellow victors and the two tributes they would be mentoring from District 4 to the Capitol.

He had been distractedly tying knots on a length of rope while his fellow mentors were trying to learn more about their new charges. None of them really had been watching the television where the reapings of the double-digit districts were now broadcasted live. The four other people in the room briefly looked at the screen, barely a couple of seconds, before resuming their talk.

But not Finnick. He watched, slightly intrigued, as a young brown-hair girl detached herself from some Peacekeepers and shouted what she had just murmured, her back straight and her voice strong and clear.

"-I volunteer as tribute!"

Finnick smirked then stood up and went to the buffet to pick one of the sugary pastries. He sat back down and finally got involved in the conversation between mentors and tributes.

How rare, a volunteer from a lesser district! And 12, no less. Maybe this year's Games would turn out to be interesting.

But he doubted it.

Finnick looked at the other mentors around him. Not all twenty four of them were there, but it was never the case. The room he was in was one of the thirteen mentoring rooms in the Training center. Twelve individual ones – one for each district – and the big common one where mentors could watch the Games together.

The Games wouldn't start for another two weeks but mentors liked to meet here to discuss things and greet one another.

Finnick had gone to the common viewing room. He wanted to check the mood of these Games. So far it seemed that there would be no surprise. But Finnick, perhaps more than anyone, knew that there always was the possibility for big surprises.

Half an hour before the Opening ceremony started, mentor and victor Haymitch Abernathy staggered in, drunk as usual. He was far from being the only victor with an addiction. But a part of Finnick had expected him to maybe go easy of the alcohol this year, if only because the girl tribute seemed to have more of a back bone than his usual tributes.

Finnick didn't quite know what to make of an as-drunk-as-usual Abernathy. Did that mean that she had broken down in the train and revealed herself to be just like the others before her?

The young mentor sighed, disinterested once more. Whatever is was, it wasn't his problem. He left: it was time for him to go find his own tributes to send them off. He would then return to the mentor viewing lodge to watch the parade. He would go to District 4's allocated one this time.

Finnick sat down on the chair in front of a middle-size screen. He was back into the common lodge in the end. He had a feeling it would be interesting to hear the others' comments. So he watched and he listened.

He watched the screen where children displayed the colours of the districts they would never go back to. As usual the Careers looked confident, his own tributes included. Most of the others were younger and less imposing… Preys. The male tribute from 11 almost looked like a Career, dwarfing his petite female counterpart.

Finnick watched as the tributes from 12 appeared on the television screen. He listened as the Capitol went crazy about her and her flames. He watched as the innocent girl from the reaping was consumed by a more mature version of herself. He listened as the Capitol gave her a name, branding her into their minds: the Girl on Fire.

And Finnick snickered: maybe this year's Games would be interesting in the end, if only because someone from a lesser district was memorable, for once.

Finnick didn't talk to or help his tributes. That was Jason's and Milia's role, the other mentors. On his yearly visit to the Capitol, Finnick was tasked with the _public_ aspect of mentoring and had to _meet_ a lot of people. So Finnick only watched what everyone else was watching on the television instead of the more detailed and informative mentors' channels.

He was at a _meeting_ when the scores were announced. Fortunately the man he was with desired to watch the announcement. So Finnick watched, as surprised as the rest of the Capitol, as the girl from 12 received an eleven, beating even the Careers.

Finnick smirked: yep, this year's Games would be interesting. So he decided to watch them more attentively than usual, if only to see if her flames would burn bright or be extinguished.

Just like he had decided ,Finnick watched.

He watched as the Girl on Fire survived the initial Cornucopia bloodbath, gaining a knife in the process. He watched her trek into the forest for several hours and stop to take stock of her new belongings. He discovered that she had a good head on her shoulders.

Finnick paid no attention to his tributes. After ten years it was just easier that way. He paid a minimum amount of attention to everyone equally, except for the Girl on Fire.

He watched and saw that she was a hunter. The fisher in him would have liked to take a closer look at her snares, to see how they worked. He watched as she climbed up in a tree and tied herself down for the night. Smart move.

He watched as she observed the Career pack kill another tribute nearby.

He didn't watch what happened during the first night. He had an appointment. But when he entered the common viewing room the next morning and looked at District 12's screen, he saw that she had grown more dehydrated.

He watched as Haymitch and her seemed to have a conversation through the screen. Smart girl.

A lull in the Games, at least for the girl. Another appointment. Than another. Finnick wished he could watch the Games in the mentor room instead. Anything but the appointments. The only bright side was that everyone in the Capitol watched the Games. His clients watched the Games. So Finnick could watch them too. At least the edited version.

He was at an appointment when he watched her run for her life and try to escape a fire Finnick knew had been meant for her. He watched as she ran and ran and twisted and turned. He watched as she screamed when her thigh burned. The Girl on Fire burned. She kept running. He kept watching.

Finnick watched as she climbed up a tree despite her injuries, hissing in pain, once again running for her life as the Career pack chased her. He noted that his tributes were not part of it. But the male tribute from her district was.

He watched as she taunted them. He repressed a laugh.

The night was fast approaching as she waited in the tree, high enough to be safe. When the silver parachute arrived in a higher branch next to her, he almost winced with her, imagining the pain she was in. He'd never been burned but it looked nasty. When she sighed in relief after applying the medicine, he decided to call it a night. He had no appointment.

Finnick had to admit he was intrigued. It wasn't every year that someone from the double-digit districts survived that long, especially when the Career pack was hunting them.

Later he watched the sky in the arena beginning to light up. The night-and-day rhythm was different in the arena: the Gamemakers made it so the hours when most activity took place in the arena were when most of the Capitolites were up and watching. After 74 years of Games, they knew the crack of dawn was one of the most interesting parts of the day: the tributes were tired or sleeping, their guard lowered.

Finnick watched the girl in the tree. The sky was still dark light of the very early morning. She was climbing up again. Where to?

"-Tracker jackers," came the voice of the mentor of District 7.

"-Hum?

-12. She's climbing up to a nest of tracker jackers. The girl from 11 showed it to her last night.

-Where is she now?

-Disappeared in the trees again."

What could the girl possibly do with tracker jackers?

Finnick watched as she started sawing the branch the nest was in. His eyes widened slightly in surprise and disbelief. Was she going to do what he thought she was going to do?

He watched the nest fall down on the ground and the tracker jackers explode out of it, attacking the Career pack. She had done exactly what he thought she would do. Air bubbled out of his chest in a short laugh, echoed by Haymitch's guffaw. Her mentor had arrived in the room just moments before. Could he have done it on purpose?

"-Ahah, Sweetheart, you're priceless!"

The older man laughed some more.

"-I got to say, Abernathy, your Girl on Fire has balls of steel.

-That she has, Pretty Boy, that she has."

Finnick watched her during his appointments, now more intrigued than ever. He watched as the little girl from 11 helped her through the hallucinations. He watched as the Girl on Fire fed her and treated her like a friend.

He was at yet another appointment when he watched her blow up the Careers' supplies sky high. He bit his cheek to prevent himself from smiling. She was on fire all right, that girl.

And in that moment Finnick knew.

He knew that he would watch her go home. Because she was a fighter. She packed more will to survive in her petite form than the huge male tribute from 2.

A few hours later, Finnick was back in his own room, fresh out of a scalding shower when he watched her break down. The little girl from 11 was now home. He watched as the girl from 12 tucked her in a bed of flowers and cried for a little bird whose wings had been cut. He watched as the girl, the huntress, brought her fingers to her mouth and suffered with District 11.

On the mentor channel he watched as she ate the small bread a whole district had paid a fortune to send her, tears streaming down her face. Finnick knew for certain this was not showed on the television. But he watched. He saw. He saw that maybe the Girl on Fire had done something. Something that would be branded into the districts' minds. Branded by her fire.

Finnick watched. And as he watched, he saw others start to really watch too. The Capitol was watching.

The rules changed. Panem watched her search for the boy and try to bring him back to health.

Haymitch, that crafty man. Finnick watched as she put the naive boy to sleep.

He watched as she kissed him. And because he was who he was, Finnick knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that he would watch her go home and give the world hell for it. For the girl from 11. For forcing her, the free spirited girl of 12, to play a game she had played by her own rules until now.

Because of who he was, he knew that she had been forced to embrace the rules and give the Capitol a show. Because of who he was Finnick saw through the kisses. After all, he was Finnick Odair.

Finnick was just one of the thousands who watched the boy from 11 spare her just because. Because of what she had done.

Panem watched as she and the two boys left in the arena ran for their lives. In the eyes of Panem and above all of the Capitol, the mutts were big terrifying dogs. But not for the mentors. Not for the Victors, who watched and saw the horror on the girl's face. They knew that whatever was too small to be clearly seen on the screen was something she would forever see in her dreams.

For they knew how the arena worked.

Panem watched as the girl and the boy were finally the only ones left. Bloody, scared, exhausted, but happy, in a way that only Victors could understand. But the Games did not end. And Panem watched as the rules changed again.

Finnick watched as she almost became a Victor. He watched as she made up her mind and once again did something.

He watched as a girl from District 12 of all places embraced the rule of the arena, the rule of the show in the purest form, and made it hers.

She had been forced to give Panem a show. Finnick watched as she embraced the show and, with a handful of berries, bent the rule of the Games.

Finnick and the mentors and the Victors and the Districts and the Capitol watched as the girl from 12 went back home hand in hand with the boy.

And for the first time in a very long time Finnick let himself smile. This year's Games had been more than interesting. He had watched a girl become a Victor. But by her own rules. He had watched her become something. Something he did not know the nature of yet but something he would keep watching. And Finnick couldn't wait to watch her again. And to meet her, that girl from District 12, that hunter, that survivor, that Victor, that Girl on Fire. That girl who had branded her name on his mind.

Katniss Everdeen.


	3. Mrs Everdeen

**Mrs Everdeen**

Lylia Everdeen watched as her youngest daughter played with her cat. She took a deep breath. Oh how she was tempted to just forget. To close her eyes and never open them again. To keep them open but just not see, let the world pass her by.

How long had she been wishing for time to just stop? Or if she had any say about the speed of time at all, how she wished it would speed back in time. To a time when she was happy. When she fell asleep every night in the strong arms of her wonderful husband. How she wished she could still spend hours listening to him as he sung the birds into silence.

A burst of laughter snapped her back into her kitchen. Her jaw tensed. She had almost let herself slip back again. Primrose looked at her, a smile on her lips and in her eyes as her hands twisted the length of rope Buttercup was trying to chase down.

Her daughter.

Her wonderful, beautiful daughter.

Lylia couldn't believe that she had almost let her die because of her own weakness. She was so weak. She knew how easy it would be to herself fall back into it, into her weakness. She hadn't known she was so weak before the mine destroyed her life.

And now one of her daughters was fighting death once more. Only this time, when she was willing to do anything to help, she couldn't. She couldn't do anything.

Her little girl would be fighting to survive, to not be killed, because she did the one thing Lylia couldn't do (not only by law but also because she wouldn't have been able to): she stepped up. Her daughter, her wonderful, strong daughter had chosen to risk her own death (or life, depending on how one viewed things) in order to save her little duck.

Did Lylia even have the right to call Katniss her daughter still? She hadn't been a mother to her in so long.

Oh how Lylia wished she could be like her. Like her strong Katniss, who resembled her father so much it hurt, who had ordered her to be a mother to Prim because she couldn't be here anymore.

Lylia clenched her jaws even tighter. She would do this. She would be Prim's mother once more. She would not betray her daughters this time. But oh, how painful it was. How hard it was.

Lylia had to remind herself every day that she had to do this. She didn't have a choice. And so, like every day since Katniss had saved her sister, Lylia forced herself back into her own life. She knew she would be tempted to slip back into nothingness again. But she would have to resist.

And resist she did, for today was the day they had to watch Katniss enter the arena for the first time.

So she watched. She did nothing but watch. She _could_ do nothing but watch.

It was a miracle that she had not shed a single tear yet. She knew she couldn't. For Prim.

For Prim, who was forced to watch her sister whimper in agony when flames tore her flesh, who was forced to watch as her sister cried for her own death in that arena as the big brown eyes of little Rue dimmed and lost their light. Lylia _could not_ _c_ ry.

Prim didn't cry.

Lylia watched, eyes dry but hands clenched so hard into her dress she almost tore the fabric. She watched everything happen in a blur.

She watched as Prim became her only daughter. Because she realized that the girl who left the arena with the boy and who would soon return to District 12 would not be her daughter. Not anymore. She would be a broken person.

Lylia almost let herself cry when she understood that. How cruel maybe to be thinking like that. But Lylia wasn't cruel. She just knew. Maybe she was still her mother after all, if she could just know like that. It didn't matter. It didn't matter that Lylia was somehow still Katniss' mother. Katniss would not be her daughter anymore.

Lylia mourned the hard truth that her daughter had lost her innocence. Her very age. Because whoever came out of the arena was not a 16 year old girl.

Lylia had witnessed it once. With Haymitch. She hadn't understood it at the time. Hadn't understood what had changed. Now she did. Now she understood. Haymitch. Katniss. Both had lost their innocence and now evolved in a different world. A world where children were killed by children. Only, those children were not children anymore. They were killers.

And now Lylia was terrified. She was terrified that her daughter, her baby, her wonderful Katniss would become like Haymitch. Like poor Haymitch who wished for nothing more than to just forget.

But then Lylia hoped. She hoped that maybe Katniss would overcome all this and retain a bit of her innocence and purity. Because she wasn't alone. She had Peeta. Maybe it would be enough.

For once Lylia didn't let herself be pulled into nothingness. Instead she let herself be pulled (and maybe pushed herself a bit too) into this hope. She let it took hold of her entire being.

Yes.

Her daughter would be alright. She wasn't alone. She had Peeta. There was nothing to fear.

(Lylia Everdeen let herself sink into weakness once more when she refused to acknowledge that deep down she knew, oh she knew that her strong daughter had been broken in a way that even the Mellark boy would never be able to fix.)


End file.
